The weekend saw 19 young spirits sign up to venture across the border into the heartland of JB cricket for a practice match featuring the team touring South Africa next week.
(4 others waited in JB to make 22 players)
One Spirit apparently broke his leg the day before so was excused (we'll fine him later). 1 got lost but 17 Spirits turned up at the bus depot on time according to Amar's deluge of mails. Of course, no bus!
30 min later with John and Sandeep doing laps around Dempsey in their car the one lost Spirit was spotted. The unmistakable sight of Kalpesh trudging up the hill to SCC's Dempsey ground. Lost, maybe he wanted a beer, maybe he wanted to go home? Anyhow, this was good fortune though as he was the only one who actually knew where the bus was hiding.
An hour and half later the games commenced. The first few overs saw the combination of Glen and Fernie start off strongly. Glen 27 off 26 balls started the damage on the way to a 7 over, 56 run opening partnership before Rammy got him with a yorker. Fernie, a strong 32 off 20 staring retirement in the face played across the line and followed Glen to the pavilion. Sandeep (11 off 14) and Ralston (18 off 27), not from a generation so familiar with 20/20's "steadied the ship". This left Paul and Logu to go ballistic, animal and out of control at the end with 5+ overs to go. They would argue Rammy, Dave and Ashok bowled a good line but after a lot of running around, plenty of Yes / No's / Yes the boys scrapped through at a run a ball without hitting the boundry rope.
The final score 137 on a fast outfield and flat pitch...
Chasing the "other" Spirits started off like a rocket. Rajesh (36 off 20) schooled his cousin Logu (2-0-22-0) smacking him over the long on fence a couple of times. Graeme at the other end got treated to Kalpesh delicately steering the ball through slips finding the shortest route to the fence. Rajesh retired and the "Others" were 0-51 off 5 overs and romping home... Henri (15 off 12), a newby from NZ showed his virgin spirits batting and when he got out it was 2-81 in the 9th over....game all but over... This brought Captain Rammy to the crease. The tourists sensing nerves brought up the sledging a notch and the captain froze. 13 off 26 for a 50% strike rate to put the tourists back into the game! Jan though, seeing his captain struggle didn't have stage fright at the other end and kept the runs going, dispatching Ollie & Sandeep well over the fences late in his innings to finish with a festive 31 off 18 balls. Though the game went to the 17th over the tourists were well and truly thrashed in the end..... If this happens on tour to South Africa they may get mistaken for Kiwi's... At this point the skies opened and the planned second "sweet revenge" 20/20 was called off and the bar opened. If you ever need an excuse to join the JB tour, besides a beautiful ground, beers are 3 for 20 RMB ($8). Photos attached: Man of the Match: Close call btw Rajesh, Fernie and Jan. Give it to Jan for putting us out of our misery! Wooden Spoon: Varun. In the normal Spirit fashion, when the bus pulled up at the Malaysian checkpoint we realized he had been left in the sh*tter at KFC 5km back. Rammy a close second for not noticing the guy sitting next to him was missing. | ||
No comments:
Post a Comment